Don’t forget your digital assets

26 Sep 2017

Today’s world is lived online, but for many people, digital assets go by the wayside when estate planning.

The rise of technology means that most people have some form of digital footprint. Whether it’s photographs, Skype accounts or social media accounts, these things need to be accounted for. And according to Paul Paxton-Hall, director of legal firm Paxton-Hall, there is still an uncertainty around how to handle digital assets once we’re gone.

 “There has been a shift from people keeping photograph albums, journals and letters – physical assets that can be dealt with easily in a will – to posting and storing photographs digitally, maintaining blogs and email accounts,” Paxton-Hall states. “Applying succession law to these intangible assets has its challenges as there is still uncertainty around the status of the digital assets as ‘property’.”

 The difficulty is amplified when you consider that most internet users have multiple accounts; Paxton-Hall approximates the number at 26 different accounts and 10 unique passwords.

 Another problem lies with the ownership rights of the assets themselves. This is because a lot of the time, the assets are stored, created and managed by a third party, for example, social media platforms. “Most social media and digital platforms’ user agreements do not allow users to own the property in their account,” Paxton-Hall says.

 Additionally, many platforms are actually considered foreign jurisdiction, so unless you account for your assets in your will, challenging the policies can be very difficult for your loved ones, not to mention stressful and expensive.

 The good news is, Facebook and Google allow users to nominate a legacy contact. However, with Facebook, this only pertains to accounts that have been set up to become memorialised accounts on the user’s passing. To get a page memorialised, you need to contact Facebook. You can also request that the page be removed completely, however, again, this is a time-consuming task. Importantly though, a legacay contact still cannot directly access your account. This is, of course, if they don’t have your password.

 So, what should you do?

 The best course of action is to ensure someone in your family, whether it’s written down directly in your will or somewhere completely different, knows what accounts you have and how to access them. Yes, this may mean sharing your passwords with people so be extremely selective on who this person is.

 You should also discuss your wishes with family members. Do you want your accounts completely shut down, or in the case of a social platform like Facebook, do you want your page to be memorialised?

 It’s also wise to draft a memorandum of wishes so your family or whoever is managing your estate knows what it is you want to do with your digital assets. You can even nominate someone to be the executor of your ‘digital estate’.

 Remember, as with the rest of your estate, unless you write it down, your beneficiaries won’t know what to do with your digital assets. Indeed, they may not even know that some of them exist. Be prepared and make sure your family knows what it is you’re after and how to handle everything.